2007-07-05 13:17:01 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Upside - Knowledge. Having the luxury of time to learn all that can be learned from the world. To be witness to the changes of the world.
Downside - Losing loved ones. You are bound to attach your heart to someone along the way, but since not everybody can live forever, you must stand to lose them. In the long run, you'd get tired and jaded and apathetic.
It isn't really such a great thing as it is made out to be ---this immortality... :)
2007-07-05 13:27:38 · answer #1 · answered by liv 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well I agree with the upsides listed by those above, but not with all the downsides. The only real downside would be having to grieve for all those you love throughout time, but we already do that now, just to a lesser degree. The death of a loved one is difficult, but I would think that one could develop a Zen-like acceptance of it without growing cold toward others or afraid to love them.
As for not finding out whether there's an afterlife, well, I'm pretty sure the afterlife is a purely human invention, and I'd be quite happy if I could avoid the chance of oblivion. Besides, it's my attitude that heaven & hell are what we create here on Earth for ourselves.
Boredom? That is only a lack of creativity as to how to spend one's time. Books and literature are being created faster than they could possibly be read; you could, if you wanted, spend all of eternity just reading. There will always be new places to visit and explore; by the time you've "seen it all," if that's even possible, things would have changed enough that you could start all over again. And there are a thousand jobs and professions that I would never consider worth my time now, but which I'd love to try for a few decades each if I had all the time in the world.
My #1 reason for wanting to be immortal is that I simply love the experience of life. I want to see it all, the whole future history of mankind and our species' descendants. I want to see the rise and fall of civilizations, the advancement of science and technology to unimaginable limits, the maturation of our species, the future evolution of life on this planet, the expansion out amongst the stars of the children of mankind. Of course there will be bad times, some times extremely bad. But there will also be stupendously good times, too.
Life is just too great a thing to be cut short by death. It makes me sad in a way to see all the pessimists out there who would regard immortality as a curse rather than as the greatest thing that could possibly happen to you.
2007-07-06 01:56:13 · answer #2 · answered by R[̲̅ə̲̅٨̲̅٥̲̅٦̲̅]ution 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Downsides...
Boredom. Living to see all of your friends die. Living to see many, many people die. Living through wars, famine, disasters. Never finding out if there's an afterlife.
Upsides...
Being able to do just about anything, due to the fact that you can never really die. Outliving all of your enemies. Living to see the world change and progress through time. Having, as the saying goes, all the time in the world.
2007-07-05 20:27:04 · answer #3 · answered by nopushbutton 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Upside- you would live forever, no worries about disease, accidents, downside you would live forever and watch loved ones around you die forever. I think eventually you would become very lonely not wanting to love again and watch them die.
2007-07-05 20:24:05 · answer #4 · answered by Linda S 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
the upsides:
you would get to see the progression of time and see how life and mankind evolve. it would be fascinating to see all the changes that come in the next thousand or so years. you would get to learn things and see things that we have no way of knowing or seeing now.
you would get to taste everything life has to offer. you would experience everything.
you could get a lot of money by investing and waiting for the interest.
downsides:
you would get insanely bored.
when the planet was destroyed and nothing was left you would float aimlessly in space for eternity.
2007-07-05 20:22:59 · answer #5 · answered by isentaur 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I don't know an up-side.
The down-side is that, while when we age we no longer have many of the down-sides we had in our youths, we've replaced them with others, equally insidious.
If life has a reason, dying almost certainly has an equally good reason.
And I smilingly, slyly add, if, as many suggest, life has no reason, then we might as well be dead.
2007-07-05 21:32:43 · answer #6 · answered by Jack P 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
no i would not like that at all seeing my children grow old while i alone stayed young no keep it let nature take its course and so be it
2007-07-05 20:30:17 · answer #7 · answered by ♥BEX♥ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋